The maintenance of floors, and especially tile floors, typically involves cleaning with a wet mop to remove accumulated dirt. Mops typically are made of a relatively soft material, such as cotton, rayon or other synthetic material blends, which can absorb several times their weight in water. These materials are generally formed into open-twist yarns which are used to form a mop. The yarn ends can be cut or looped depending on the particular application. The mops are generally attached to a handle to allow the user to move the mop across the tile floor in an efficient manner.
Wet mops are typically used in combination with a mop bucket, for holding a cleaning fluid, and a wringer, for removing moisture from the mop to clean a floor. In use, the cleaning fluid, typically including a liquid detergent and water, is placed in the mop bucket. The mop is dipped into the bucket to absorb the cleaning fluid, then withdrawn and moved across the floor to spread the cleaning fluid on the floor. The cleaning fluid loosens or dissolves dirt from the floor surface. The mop is reinserted in the mop bucket and rinsed, then inserted in the wringer and wrung out to remove excess moisture. The damp mop is then moved across the floor area to absorb the cleaning fluid along with the dissolved dirt from the floor surface. The mop is then placed in the wringer to remove the moisture from the mop. The process is repeated until the entire floor surface is cleaned.
Grouted tile floors are generally cleaned using the mopping process outlined above. Mopping in this manner has proven to be relatively effective for cleaning the hard, relatively smooth surfaces of tiles. However, because the mop is formed from a soft, absorbent material, it does not effectively clean the grout lines between the tiles. This problem is also prevalent in flooring which has a coarse or textured surface. Typically, when grouted tile floors or flooring having a coarse or textured surface are maintained by mopping, dirt builds up in the grout lines or the textured surface and must be periodically removed by scrubbing with a brush. Because the floor is only periodically scrubbed, the process of removing the built up dirt from the grout lines and/or textured surfaces is labor intensive.
One solution to this problem is to prevent the dirt from building up in the grout lines or the textured surfaces by cleaning the grout lines and/or the textured surfaces on a more regular or even a daily basis with a scrub brush. However, this requires the maintenance worker to clean the floor first with a scrub brush and then mop the entire floor to clean the tile surface. Because this takes additional time, maintenance workers would be required to put in longer hours, or additional maintenance workers would be needed to clean the same floor area. Alternatively, the grout lines in tile floors are not given any additional cleaning and the dirt in the grout lines is allowed to build up. This is also the case for textured floors.
Accordingly, a need has arisen for providing a cleaning system for simultaneously cleaning both smooth and textured surfaces, such as in a tile floor or textured flooring, which does not require substantial additional time or maintenance personnel for cleaning the same floor area.
The present invention overcomes many disadvantages in the known cleaning systems for tile flooring by providing a cleaning system with a cleaning apparatus, having a base member with a cleaning surface formed by a combination of a brush member and absorbent material, and a wringer apparatus configured for removing moisture from the absorbent material without compressing or damaging the brush portion. This allows for brush cleaning the grout lines and/or textured surfaces during normal mopping.